this is r.t. this is an eleventh hour deal looks like it might fall through putting america back on the edge of the fiscal cliff. island as soon as the six month presidency of the e.u. facing a wide range of issues from a challenging european agenda with zone ailing finances. and the scene with a new around the globe we digest the highlights at twenty twelve and look at the headlines that could have been if things are different.

hello there very good to have you company it's kevin over here at the new center just after one am moscow time now on our top story than the smalling a last minute deal on the american fiscal cliff was passed by the senate in the final hours before the deadline but now as they go to the house of representatives the original deal agreed to raise taxes on americans making more than four hundred fifty thousand dollars per year but the house's perspective on the voting definitely calling for more spending cuts let's talk to lawrence freeman he's editor of the executive review magazine is joining us on the line from maryland now to give us a bit more analysis of what's going on here hi lawrence know that the final decision is being left to the last minute now it looks like some sort of compromise solution has been reached who blinks first. in fact nothing is been no legislation has been passed as you know the house is still. discussing it and we're

already getting word first in anyway this whole operation has been a i mean if you lacey here in the american are far too much work over the minds of the american population because there is no nothing in that befalls we are dead in any way shape or form will actually help the economy and with no i don't know what are they voting on on chairs. well right now the thing in the house the senate bill which doesn't act is a little bit on the wealthy we store the some of the other measures that were taken out in terms of the payroll tax but it doesn't do anything to change the economy much of the debt from going down is worse than it should be hearing and we're at the beginning what kind of tarp we have to make you may know that next mark in january bernanke we depend. is going to be perky seeing over one hundred

billion dollars a month of mortgage backed security and very very security guard will be waiting so both parties are supporting and going to work the dog and pony show over the fiscal cliff where they think we're already over the system well much because it's called a big fear of what is going out and some aren't and you think. i don't think anything's going to happen i think with what we're seeing right now you have almost twenty seven million people unemployed and missing boy you have forty nine point seven million people living in poverty you have tens of millions of people going to the bread line to get their food and so this question of the big global economy and the wealth of the population is not good at all or nothing is going to be resolved we're going aggressively to change the whole by means of with them so that with the eagle separation of the banks now will we need some of the debt that any one of the bills kept today or tomorrow abominate you know they're doing nothing good we

merican people for the new year this new legislation is said to prevent middle class taxes from going up isn't it but it would raise rates on rich americans will not be the kind of repetition of what's happening in france up to seventy five percent that when the rich it's so a lot they're ready to flee the country well there's a really complex that much that you wait a few percent tax on wealthy people i don't find that to be a solution at all to attract western today globally is a question is what kind of credit are you going to make available for investing in infrastructure in jobs in any rebuilding new york new jersey the providing people with jobs so they can bring home money to them made their families those are the crucial question for you but you got to get that money from someone to make those credit some you know you can generate great big government at the power to generate credit for the public credit for projects that lead to

a large increase in forgot that wealthy congress infrastructure is an excellent way to feed that doesn't create new problems it actually generate new currency to the economy but the currency is tied to future production of wealth and that is solutions that we have been posing not those who can vary in the world it's. i'm create move the vehicle well not how do you manipulate that. which is going monetary amount of nothing you live in the country i guess you know what i'm a what's going on i didn't have friends or family the people who talk to affairs to make the general public tired of the deadlock in washington and that they're about to feel the consequences of being held over the so-called fiscal cliff what's going to maine for the average american the american people right now left with them they will raise with us congress. even though obama managed to get reelected very quickly right now in any way with the poor with the rapidly declining even

his own little bank right now it creates right in here. so we have really no flowery in the country we are working with here i'm with you but wouldn't a democrat stand out going against the against the grain but you know the leadership is not there briefly a ten seconds lawrence if you can is america likely to head into another recession now absolutely we haven't gotten out of this we've got him in the right way him. or not he supported by both democrats will be growing the u.s. economy everything you're doing there we're in we're in for a rough year mark you'll be back to talk to us about it no doubt lawrence freeman thank you editor at the executive intelligence review magazine much appreciated good night ok now let's take a look at our twenty twelve all unfolded for america last year it was

a success for barack obama some would say who secured his second u.s. presidency a washington correspondent says he not only succeeded in snatching victory from arch rival mitt romney but also votes on the third party candidates to. there were cheers of relief here when he won i would say because the alternative was thought to be so much worse many voted out of them he was another george w. bush so whether americans have fallen out of love with obama the two thousand and eight euphoria was gone that's for sure back then there were these crowds you know in the streets all across the country shedding tears of joy so bad in their view where the eight years of bush presidency obama was we get to see the year and then he went to save the banks save the auto industry something he took a special pride in during the election campaign but across the country people remained out of work and are still out of work so this time president obama ran

under the banner it could have been so much worse as you imagine it was not a better deal or a national euphoria it was more like you have no choice but to choose me kind of something that shocked me. i was covering the election here it was it was the second debate between obama and romney i'm sure you remember if you remember that i just presidential nominee from the green party joel stein was arrested right outside the venue where the debate was taking place she was protesting for exclusion from the state and nobody like no news channel period mentioned her arrest none and i was switching channels for hours to see if anything was said about that and it was nothing i can imagine what the reaction would be here in the states if a presidential candidate is the other big country was arrested in the media there wouldn't be even mention it but apparently it happens in the u.s. no big deal presidential candidates get arrested all the time right well there was some irony in that yes anyway during the election campaign the mainstream media had

been focused on nothing else and no one else but these two candidates and we are t.v. as you remember of course saw the is saw an opportunity there to show what others don't and we hosted the debate. indeed we did our correspondent in washington d.c. the just over two years ago are lose burn crops and being bailed out to rescue its failed economy on top of that it's now the country's turn to take on the next six months presidency of the european council was artie's laura smith reports next the celtic tigers got some hard graft ahead of it. it's all changed by the e.u. presidency as the takes over the six month rotating challenge on the first of january not the over choice islands one of the guys in paid the countries that have the least they will economies in europe and sure enough ireland's the birth country to take on the presidency of the twenty seven nation bloc while being propped up by

a new and i.m.f. money so for the next six months the e.u. and its systemic problems will be presided over by one of its weakest. members so what specific challenges does face in europe over the six months of its presidency first the european economy is slowing and the crisis is nowhere near over secondly it must preside over leaders actually agreeing to an e.u. budget for the year two thousand and fourteen to two thousand and twenty something they've spectacularly failed to do so in fall and thirdly there is a problem coming from right here in london increasing british opposition to brussels and the threat to european cohesion that poses the irish government expects the e.u. presidency to coast in excess of seventy million euros money the country can ill afford and what will it be spent on twenty four million on catering accommodation

and transport for example and another twenty million extra government. investment advisors. for the eurozone saying a survival of the euro would be miraculous. what's happened so far has been swindling cuts on the masses and we really haven't managed to make the remotest impact upon the whole nation itself greece is still fundamentally in a huge problematic situation it does not remotely have a functioning government system that fiscally is going to manage to organize itself in any which way possible to manage to get through the continuing when cuts that need to take list out of course then we're looking at the whole issue of the demonstrators are the governments listening well the truth is the government's counter ford to listen because what we're seeing within the european union even if

the euro house survived miraculously for twelve months government has run out of money the european union's western socialist model of spending huge amounts of money borrowing even greater amounts of money and hoping to pay everything manyara or indeed thirty years from manion or simply does not work. freedom of speech but not for the whistle blower after the break. up of. the. twelfth. mission. critical patients three. three. three. three. three.

three both. wealthy british. market. happening to the global economy with. the no holds. headlines. cool.

for the world's top whistleblower julian assange spied hoffa twenty twelve under house arrest of the remainder of the ecuadorian embassy in london a correspondent sara first been following his ups and. a lot of you say quickly more in a year would see the media organizations have done decades we've really had a front seat view of everything that's been going on we've had him at the beginning of the year fighting extradition to sweden we saw his the pill rejected we then saw that dramatic twist in the tell when he went into the i could do it and seeking asylum we've. certainly the british media we see a lot of the white this is the especially during the course of this year with all these. events happening surrounding. a lot of people would put that down payment simply to jealousy. the main news from around the globe violence flared up again in the palestinian territory in the northern west bank several palestinians were reportedly injured when israeli security forces fired on them after the troops were

pelted with stones and bottles the trouble erupted after the soldiers discos does vegetable sellers apparently try to seize operatives of a local jihadist group blockades have been set up in the area you follow a middle east correspondent updates on twitter just look for. the. scuffles between protesters and police have broken out of the margin on kong demanding the resignation of the city's top political. falling popularity and a no confidence vote against him since he came to power six months ago he was elected by beijing but committee of twelve hundred people. around chooses a new president in june this year mahmoud ahmadinejad served his maximum two terms and there's little clue than as to who will replace him to tackle the almost inexorable tension with the west over to run this nuclear program german style should return as he was often share his insights on around with r.t. doesn't expect the new leader is going to bend to foreign will in any case. i think

whoever we people of iran elects policy foreign policy things are going to be much the same people are already talking about the mayor of tehran at the moment i was in a job himself present in a job as the mayor of tehran for the new mayor of tehran ghalibaf and people are talking about him. perhaps winning in june because it's too early and is notoriously difficult to predict iranian elections as to whether they will be as hardline in again the terms in the terminology of western corporate media on this or bizarre and they just get islamic extremists in all sorts of different morning because the point is iran is there to stay in terms of forging a very different type of developing nation and economy because it has all that oil and has all those resources and it's not going to suddenly start changing things the way the i.m.f. or the way that washington wants it to be iran's nuclear plans on the power switch

to dominate headlines coming out of the middle east that she got expert opinion about who the key players in countries the likely to be in shaping out the rest of regions fortunes are going to pan out from iran and israel i listed. one of the team i want to check this out a photo finish for twenty twelve we've lined up a gallery of eye catching snapshots of stories that captured worldwide attention in the past year if you joy. twenty twelve so something of a rise of the machines is drone warfare shot into the headlines americans killing civilians abroad the approved a drone use for keeping tabs on people inside the u.s.

with the topics the truth. is breaking the set and she thinks things are going to a decent. briley when we're talking about drones actually a really serious topic because people are under this notion that drones are somehow precise they're the good way to fight the war on terror really they completely are counterintuitive they create and harbor more terrorists they have a ninety eight percent failure rate i mean so why are we using and i mean it's just amazing to me that this president is rain on drones and taking on more and more drones and not only that but i mean the surveillance drones are going to happen in this country in two thousand and thirteen congress passed a bill to now authorize surveillance drones all over the united states so this is just not going to stop it's going to get worse aside from the from the deaths and the double tap drones that we have in the middle eastern countries now is going to create a chilling effect where people aren't going to want to dissent as much and that's the real problem with the online privacy the online erosion of our civil liberties

as well as people are going to speak out as much if they feel like they're being watched. martin so twenty thirty minutes made it in around the globe with an array of fireworks performances and cheering crowds just a quick look here in russia officially kicked off for the traditional charge of the country's main clock on one of the kremlin towers and then across the atlantic over a million spectators descended on new york's iconic times square to celebrate event with the fish will drop of the crystal ball. and one of the most spectacular shows unveiled was in brazil some two point five million revelers gathered on the famous quote about the breach the very nice to mixed emotions regarding the past with so. many more hopeful the twenty thirty will bring better times lucy cuff takes a look at the world but could the. twentieth was certainly full of disappointing headlines hope fueled by the arab

spring turned into the turmoil of the arab on the war in syria claimed countless lives and the fiscal crisis saw the european union torn apart at its very seams now the problems facing our world today certainly don't offer themselves up to an easy fix what if things have turned out differently what if opportunities were actually seized upon instead of missed well here's our look at the twenty twelve headlines that could have been. diplomacy succeeds in syria ending bloody conflict. instead this was the image of syria the world saw increasingly violent clashes between government forces and the opposition had claimed more than forty thousand lives efforts to negotiate a diplomatic solution fall flat because divisions ripped apart both the country and the international community hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled to neighboring states where many have found conditions to be dismal meanwhile syria's

war is threatening to spill over its borders as tensions escalate within and in the reach. atomic triumph sanctions slashed as iran's nuclear to accept. gunning to end gun fire the us rules to restrict firearms mideast peace israel links to states packed with palestine. yet this was their reality israel's assault on palestinian militants in gaza israel's anti-missile shield repelled in most attacks on its territory but a strike claimed the lives of more than one hundred sixty palestinians many of them civilians despite harsh condemnation from many in the international community the war and israel's subsequent decision to construct three thousand new settlements effectively slammed the door shut to any prospects of peace go through people power moment you step aside and let democracy in. get lost get most notorious kuantan in

my prison permanently shot. euro zone cuts the cuts and lifts austerity. but the news of austerity only tightened as deep public sector cuts brought thousands of angry demonstrators to the streets of greece spain italy and portugal. the worst economic crisis of a generation has battered the european union's very foundations exacerbating tensions between member states with some regions now desperately wanting out more you grew up in a europe that was divided from east to west. to europe it is divided from the self i've never at any point of the history of this union has there been more discord of rancor that we covered. corporate cash for the campaign coffers as part of the us political please. know we here for u.k. british quit european union. we found a julian the soldier appointed u.n. free speech and. instead a song remains a political refugee at ecuador's london embassy where he's been granted asylum he

continues to fight extradition to sweden over. are alleged sex crimes charges that he says are politically motivated and tied to his work in leaking international government secrets. the power of people speaking up and resisting together terrifies corrupt democratic power so much so that onery people here in the west and the enemy of governments an enemy to be watched and intimate to be controlled and to be impoverished true democracy is not the white house true democracy is not. true democracy is the resistance of people with the truth against lies from tolerance to right here in london. every day ordinary people teach us that democracy is free speech and just sent.

from heretics to hero american whistleblower bradley manning finally free. droning on the nation's agree to end era of remote controlled war. egypt's arab spring sees democracy defeat hardline islam as. the reality on the ground was anything but egyptian president mohamed morsi is fouled like power grab unleashed fury and frenzied street battles and a fast track to constitutional overhaul referendum left a bitter opposition eager for change for them two thousand and twelve saw the arab spring transformed into an egyptian nightmare had the revolution to get rid of a tyrant the dictator. in in order to that we made elections and that evolution and elections to choose someone to the present us it turned out that this guy is also a tyrant himself and these headlines may have been the stuff of imagination but that sea of twenty thirteen can bring any of them to life with the coffin of r.t.

moscow. while we'll be following what the years go off you can count on that many would be missing a sore head right now after the new year's celebrations but have no fear max and stacey are as sharp as ever there with the guys report right after this break. i never thought i could earn a living this way. natalee a shell of ours and should just small arms that does not always tomasz and build employment a lot are also lost count of all the weapons she's fired over the past twelve years which. i got so used to it sometimes my friends ask me to join them at the rifle range and i say no way i'm so tired of shooting. the planets history goes from

making firearms doing world war two to ballistic missiles from nuclear submarines during the cold war the bulk of the soviet industry was moved here in the 1940's to flee the virus and germans so if you were also became the heart of soviet military production closed off to foreigners for half a century it thrived on the massive moods of the soviet military when the u.s.s.r. collapsed but life here was shaken to the core but some adapted to better than others. this is the fuel truck factory russia's number one of which truck maker or gravel look at how well the workplace is organized everything's gone to make sure the workers don't waste time waiting there was so production is booming in the factory has largely managed to get on to civil rails these giants are sold around the globe hit a base and brand new be the way to be delivered to acquire seventy trucks like this

one roll up the bronx conveyor belt every day slogan about this things that absolutely huge. well i'm no formula one pilot but hopefully if i can get that. well i can go for a test drive. to get one of these to travel to once every morning with the cost of about forty thousand dollars i should start saving my. clue.

i max kaiser welcome to the kaiser reporting welcome to twenty thirteen you know more than one hundred thirty years ago the outlawed jesse james when robbing a train passengers and i quote were not ordinary things we're told robber. the victims loved it and almost every single one of the victims killed was unarmed yes the population adored him today the likes of jamie diamond and lloyd blankfein

similarly enjoy celebrity status as bold robbers of an arm you know as a pal these and pension funds across the world cheeky jamie lovable lloyd are heroes to many a young hoping to be derivative slinging financial murderers in the high frequency trading in dark pools is twenty thirteen the year however of the banking death penalty we will see the democracy of the outlaws of the law and order restored of all our planes of finance that is marked production for twenty third stacy herbert max welcome to tory thirteen we haven't got to sleep yet have we got it. well the first headline we're going to cover is a good omen for twenty thirty that's a bad omen i think for lovable lloyd and adorable jamie u.b.s. libel.